> Most people in the media (news readers and so forth) have a "morals clause" in their contract because they publicly represent the company. This situation is much the same.
Indeed, community manager (call that evangelist if you want to) is a weird job. You're supposed to be social, natural - to be as you would be in private life. In cases like these, you're even supposed to use your own identity to support the brand : you are someone real, that get in touch with real people in the most friendly fashion.
But you can't be yourself too much. That's a problem here, since you don't have any other "real" identity. You have to be the brand and as such, everything you do and say is backed up by the brand.
Adria used her own personal twitter account to make her statement, that sounds legitimate. But developer has been fired because she had the weight of sendgrid brand.
That's something very pervert in the community manager / evangelist job : you sell your social self (something I guess politicians know well).
On a side note, I'm quite surprised this can happen in the US, which places free speech as the one and most important right. Not when related to business.
Ah, two great points: 1) the difficulty / contradictions in community manager / evangelist jobs, and 2) free speech in the US.
I am not sure where you are from - France, judging by the hour, grammar, punctuation? - but after living outside the US and having the luxury of observing my home country from the outside, I have found that free speech is not treated with as much value as we seem to claim. Some would say that free speech in the US is very much threatened nowadays.
But you'd think if we really value free speech in this country, and not just the First Amendment, we wouldn't be so quick to want to suppress the speech of others.
Freedom of speech is the freedom to announce to the world that you are an idiot.
It is NOT the freedom to force others not to listen to or act on what you say. I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many people misunderstand this.
Actions have consequences, and this includes speech. It is not the job of any American to support thouse who espouse beliefs they find repugnant, just because they have the freedom to speak up about those same beliefs.
A business has a right to communicate freely as well, for example to make a strong statement by firing an employee.
Getting involved between private parties is generally not productive in the long run, as it necessarily provides the government more control over speech. Private business may abuse civil rights from time to time, but the government has far more potential (and historic precedence) for abuse.
Yes, I understand that. It was a blanket statement about freedom of speech, not necessarily a direct correlation between the situation and freedom of speech.
Indeed, community manager (call that evangelist if you want to) is a weird job. You're supposed to be social, natural - to be as you would be in private life. In cases like these, you're even supposed to use your own identity to support the brand : you are someone real, that get in touch with real people in the most friendly fashion.
But you can't be yourself too much. That's a problem here, since you don't have any other "real" identity. You have to be the brand and as such, everything you do and say is backed up by the brand.
Adria used her own personal twitter account to make her statement, that sounds legitimate. But developer has been fired because she had the weight of sendgrid brand.
That's something very pervert in the community manager / evangelist job : you sell your social self (something I guess politicians know well).
On a side note, I'm quite surprised this can happen in the US, which places free speech as the one and most important right. Not when related to business.